Blogging has introduced me to some really cool people. I think I’ve met in real life now at least a dozen ladies that I’ve met first through blogging, and it’s always been a pleasure. So that got me thinking, I bet all of you are really great women and I wish I knew you better. (And it’s obvious you’re great if you read my blog. *snort* Whatever. It at least means we have something in common.) That’s when I had one of my genius ideas*. What if I “interviewed” some of you on my blog to find out more about you? The extra bonus is that other readers with similar circumstances or interests can find you too and maybe more friendships can be formed. Strength in numbers, ladies, strength in numbers.
What do you think? Any volunteers?
*disclaimer: I have lots of genius ideas that may appear to be abandoned. (Like when I was writing this, I remembered that I never published those “fake” General Conference talks you submitted.) BUT. I will do it. And some of you may wonder whatever happened to my Protecting Innocence Project that I went on and on and on about over a year ago. I confess that it temporarily (if a year can count as temporary) fell through the cracks, but it is not forgotten. (Give me a break. We finished law school and I moved across the country.) A lot of work has been done behind the scenes, and lately I’ve had a little fire in my bones to get it up and going. And I will. I promise. Okay, disclaimer done. Feel free to let me know if any of my other genius ideas went completely forgotten.
It’s time to announce the winner of the trivia contest, and the 5,000th commenter. Watch this exciting show for the dramatic reveal (and a special challenge for any of you who participated in the meme): Sorry the video is in two pieces; I had a little technical difficulty.
Here are the links if you can’t see the videos on my blog: part 1 and part 2
Congratulations to the winners!! Send me an email with your address and I will mail your prizes later this week. 🙂
Here are the answers to the trivia questions: (If you think I got something wrong, please just be forgiving. The questions were based on my copious notes, and there were about 10 other people who got all the same answers, so I feel like it’s pretty accurate.)
1. Name two of the new temples that were announced. Hartford, Connecticut; Indianapolis, Indiana; Tijuana, Mexico; Urdaneta, Philippines; and Lisbon, Portugal
2. What did President Monson ask young couples to begin preparing for now? missions as senior couples
3. Two different speakers based their talk on the same previous talk about Following the Prophet. Who gave it originally? Ezra Taft Benson
4. Elder McConkie said that “what matters most in learning is the attitude of ..(whom). “? the teacher
5. According to President Uctdorf, in family relationships, love is spelled ……T-I-M-E ?
6. What happened to Elder Hales as a young boy when his dad asked him to varnish the floor? he painted himself into a corner
7. President Brigham Young once said that moving to (where?) was “out of the frying pan into the fire, and out of the fire onto the floor.” Utah , Salt Lake Valley
8. One young missionary offered to marry Elder Gong’s wife after she did what? baked him bread
9. President Packer told parents to “Wake up and understand what’s going on!” What plague was he referring to? pornography
10. What did the children in one elementary school decide to vote on during show and tell? (from President Packer’s talk) the gender of the kitty
11. President Monson told the story of a family who lost all their crops due to rain, but were still grateful. What did they eat for their Thanksgiving dinner? jackrabbit and turnips (marked it right if you got at least one of these)
12. Elder Bednar told a story about Joseph Smith speaking to the President of the United States. When he inquired about the difference between our religion and others, what was one of the points Joseph answered him? mode of baptism, or gift of the Holy Ghost
13. Elder Malm spoke about a hollow tree he saw lining a street in Sweden. What did he see when he looked inside the hole? waste/trash
14. Elder Allred told his wife’s story about working on a farm. What happened that caused her to exclaim, “You stupid cow!!”? the cow ate the wheat outside of the fence so it bloated (and then died)
15. Elder Ballard compared Satan’s tricks and counterfeits to what outdoor sport? fly fishing
Matching— topic to speaker:
16. The consecrated life D. Elder D. Todd Christofferson
17. Choose faith C. Bishop Richard C. Edgely
18. Character and integrity A. Elder Richard G. Scott
19. Courageous parenting B. Elder Larry Lawrence
20. Trust in God E. President Henry B. Eyring
TIEBREAKER: Which speaker lost his voice in the middle of his talk? President Uchtdorf (did anyone notice that they edited that part out on the video archive?)
We now take a break from deep thoughts to just have a little bit of fun. It’s like a three-ring blog circus:
General Conference Blog-sharing Activity/Contest
Comment Prize Giveaway
Post-It Awards
General Conference Blog-sharing Activity/Contest
It’s been a long time since I participated in a meme (don’t worry, I had to look it up once, too–it’s basically some kind of questionnaire that you can fill out and pass along to others). I thought it would be fun to have an extra reason to pay careful attention at Conference. Here are the meme questions:
General Conference Highlights, October 2010:
1. Who were your three favorite speakers?
2. Favorite talk?
3. Favorite hymn sung during Conference?
4. Who wore the best tie?
5. Do you think conference had a “theme”?
6. Share a few of your favorite quotes (paraphrasing is fine).
7. Something that made you smile during conference.
8. Any evidence that your children paid attention?
9. If you had to give a talk in General Conference (don’t faint, this is hypothetical), what do you think you’d speak about?
10. What are some of your post-conference goals?
On Monday morning, I’ll post my own answers here on this blog and you can post your answers on your blog. (You can cut and paste the questions and just fill in the blanks with your answers.) Then just leave a link to your post in the comments on Monday’s post here. That way I (and other readers) can check out what you had to say. And you can invite your readers to do the same thing so you can find out their conference highlights.
Also, on my Monday post, I’ll post a General Conference trivia quiz. Whoever has the most points will be entered into a drawing for a prize! (Not sure what yet, but something cool. Oooh, I know. How about President Monson’s new biography?) Monday will be a fun day.
Comment Prize Giveaway
Now, any of you who have a blog know that blog comments are like little Christmas presents. They make you happy. My little ol’ blog has been up and running here since last March and I just noticed in my stats recently that I’m eerily close to getting my 5,000th comment! I know some people get that many comments in a week, but whatever. I still felt like celebrating. So whoever makes magical comment number 5,000 will win another prize. I’ll figure out what after I peruse your blog and think of something fun. Just wanted to do something to say thanks to my fantastic readers for giving me so many little comment-gifts over the last couple years.
Post-It Awards
Here are some of my recent favorite September posts from BlogLand. Several of them are from the the September Celebration of Family from Cocoa and Jocelyn‘s blogs. Enjoy!
I haven’t been producing many quality posts lately, and I have no real reasons except that life has seemed a little busy. And when life is busy, my brain goes a tiny bit frenzied and most of the stuff I have to say is barely comprehensible, much less inspirational.
Oh, I did start taking a Zumba class at my gym. It’s an exercise class that’s kind of a cross between latin dancing (which I love, mostly because I really like latin music) and jazzercise (or whatever those dancy-type cardio workout classes are called). Anyway, it’s kind of fun even though it makes muscles that I’ve never even met before cry out in pain for several days at a time. And it’s also fun if you don’t consider the fact that I look like the biggest, most ridiculous, uncoordinated fool this side of the Tex-Mex border. Continue reading →
The Lord knows that I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, so when He wants me to learn something, he hands it to me in small, digestible pieces . . . EVERYwhere I turn for days and weeks, even months at a time. (He’s really so patient while He waits for me to get it.) I will give an inventory of his subtle messages just in the last 10 days or so.
Elder Bradley Foster in General Conference: ” . . . a distraction doesn’t have to be evil to be effective.”
Sister Julie Beck: “There is much distraction and not enough peace and joy. . . But with personal revelation, [a mother] can prioritize correctly and navigate this life confidently. . . . mothers can feel help from the Spirit even when tired, noisy children are clamoring for attention, . . . Being in the right places allows us to receive guidance. It requires a conscious effort to diminish distractions, but having the Spirit of revelation makes it possible to prevail over opposition and persist in faith through difficult days and essential routine tasks.”
Elder Robert D. Hales: “Mother, Father, are you in there? Grandpa, Grandma, are you there? Being there means understanding the hearts of our youth and connecting with them. And connecting with them means not just conversing with them but doing things with them too. . . . I would hope that we would bear our testimonies so that our children will know where our hearts are and that we love them. The greatest love andthe greatest teachings should be in our homes.”
My house needs attention. When I resurface from the office and look around at the messes, I know my time could have been better spent.
A friend gave a wonderful talk at church about time management that really resonated with me. (Hi, SP!)
I remembered this post that I wrote almost seven months ago, (and it was a good one) but it’s a lesson I still have not completely learned.
I caught myself having only half-attentive phone conversations because I was trying to read email at the same time.
I want to start exercising regularly again, but I feel like there’s not enough time in the day. Why is that? (pause for burning self-reflection)
Tell me I’m not the only one who sees some of myself in this cartoon.
I don’t even own all those gadgets, but still. At some level, there’s a sad truth in there.
I’m pretty good at monitoring my children’s screen time, but when I get online, it’s kind of a chain reaction of “tasks*” and before I know it, I’m not proud of how much time I spent.
*Any blog comments? I need to check email and see if they wrote me back about that fireside assignment. Oh, let me see if Matt transferred my budget into my account yet. And . . . a quick look at Reader to see if any blog friends have posted anything new. Ha ha. Better comment on that. Okay, that’s good. Before I sign off, I’m just going to check Facebook really quick. I don’t think I’ve updated my status for several days. Oh look, one of my old young women is engaged. Check out her fiancee’s page to see if he’s a loser. And all his photos. Hey, he’s friends with a girl I taught at EFY; I wonder what she’s up to these days. . . . Oops, forgot to do my status. Type-ity type type: “Avoiding laundry.” Check email ONE more time. I don’t think I ever read that attachment that Shantel sent me yet. Whoa, newsflash: there was an earthquake in Utah? Better check that out. And I forgot I wanted to look at the menu for our date night restaurant so I know how much to budget for dinner . . . .
I think you get the idea.
So I’m going to be proactive about this little, ahem, problem. I found this link, and it reviews the top ten internet controls software. These are programs that control not only content, but also let you set daily and weekly time limits for individual users, including YOURSELF:
It looked like this one was really good, but it doesn’t have a Mac version that I can see: http://www.kidswatch.com/ I also found this one that has a Windows and Mac version: http://www.netnanny.com/
And here’s a link for some free downloads for simple timers and filters. (As with all free shareware, make sure you have a good anti-virus program in place, just in case.)
(A special note for my mother, mother-in-law, and any other concerned relatives: Don’t worry. I don’t spend all day on the Internet and I’m still feeding and bathing my children. Really. My life would just be a lot more efficient if I spent less time on the computer, so I’m working on it.)
And that’s it. I’m just admitting my own willpower might not be enough to keep me constantly focused on the things that matter most, so I’m going to use tools and rules and accountability and such to help me. And friends like you, who I’m betting will get this and will offer great advice. So thanks.
Diapers and Divinity 